Here are some step-by-step instructions on how to create a poll. A poll allows you to ask one multiple choice question and allows participants to choose from among answer options that you define. Check out the difference between a poll and a survey.

To get started, login to your Polldaddy dashboard. Click on the big blue, Create a new… dropdown and select Poll:

Name the poll, enter answer options

Now let’s name the poll and enter the answer options. To make a poll public, check the Make poll public checkbox. Note that all polls created in free accounts are public by default. Public polls are published on the Polldaddy Community site and anyone on the internet can see and participate in them. Private polls are available to paid accounts only. Private polls do not appear on the Community Site.

By default, there are five answer options. You can choose to add additional options by clicking on the Add New Answer button:

By default, possible answers appear in the order in which you entered them. We want to shake things up, so we’ve checked the Randomize answer order checkbox to serve the answer options in random order for each visitor. Finally, we’re going to allow participants to submit their own answer, if they can’t find their favorite cookie on our list. This adds an Other option with a textbox to the end of the list of answer options that participants can use to type in their own answer.

Poll options

There are several final options you can select before you create your poll:

Closing polls automatically

Poll language packs

Showing / hiding results

Blocking repeat voters

Allowing comments

Allowing sharing

Once you’ve selected final options, be sure to click on the blue Create Poll button:

Poll Styles

Now that you’ve got your poll question and answer options all set, choose a style for the poll. There’s several nifty styles to choose from. Here’s just a few:

Next, choose a width for your poll widget:

Edit Language

After you save the poll style you will be redirected to the Collect Votes page but if you go back to Design Poll and then to Edit Language you can change the language used by buttons and messages in the poll. You can choose from any already defined custom language packs or use any of the default language packs to make it easier to translate your poll.

Publishing your poll

We offer several different ways for you to publish your poll on the Collect Votes page. You can:

Embed your poll on your website

Embed your poll on your WordPress.com site

Embed your poll on your WordPress.org site

Embed your poll on your Tumblr site

Post a link to your poll on Twitter

Post a link to your poll on Facebook

Copy a direct link to the poll’s community site page to share with others